Coming to Chicago? Download the PDF Schedule to see where all of YALSA’s meetings and activities are. Read through the YALSA Wiki for details on our programs, meetings and events and to learn more about the city. Twittering about conference or posting photos to Flickr? Use hashtag #yalsaac09.

Can’t Make It? Keep your eye on the blog and on Twitter! We’ll be blogging, liveblogging, Twittering, taking videos and podcasting for all our members who couldn’t make it.

After the jump, details on YALSA’s conference plans!

Get in the Know If you’re arriving early, come to YALSA 101 on Friday, July 9 at Westin River North, Promenade Ballroom A from 4-5 p.m. We’ll offer an overview of the division and its activities. New members and those considering membership will learn more about the benefits, and established members are welcome to attend this great networking opportunity.

Buying Tickets Onsite: Tickets will be available onsite for the YALSA Happy Hour & Fashion Show ($10) ; the Morris Award Presentation & YA Authors Coffee Klatch ($25 onsite; limited availability); and the Printz Program and Reception ($35 onsite). Tickets can be purchased at the door from YALSA staff.

Other Award Events: On Sunday from 10:30-12:30 in McCormick Place West, W-179, Alex Award-winning authors  Toby Barlow for his book Sharp Teeth, Stephen G. Bloom and photographer Peter Feldstein for their book The Oxford Project, Hillary Jordan for her book Mudbound and Todd Tucker for his book Over and Under will be speaking. On Monday, after the President’s Program and Membership Meeting, attend the Odyssey Awards Presentation and Reception, with appearances by Mirron Willis and Sherman Alexie. Refreshments at Odyssey are courtesy of the Audio Publishers Association.

Events in the Exhibits: YALSA will host two meet-and-greet sessions in its booth in the Membership Pavilion (#3034). On Saturday, July 10, come meet Pam Spencer Holley, editor of YALSA’s latest publication, Quick and Popular Reads for Teens, from 3-4 p.m. On Sunday, YALSA’s president, Sarah Cornish Debraski, will be available to answer your questions and listen to your concerns.

Wireless at Conference ALA is paying for WiFi only at McCormick Place’s West building during the ALA Conference. It will be available at no charge in the public areas and meeting rooms in the West building and the Hyatt Conference Center. It will not be available for free in the Exhibit Hall, South Building or in the other hotels (w/ the exception of the Hyatt conference center). The following applications and Internet activities will NOT function and/or may disrupt other attendee access:

• Audio, Video, Data Streaming
• Network Address Translation (NAT)
• Net Meeting (inbound or outbound)
• Inbound SNMP
• Inbound Remote Control applications (Citrix, PC Anywhere, Remote Terminal Service, etc)
• Routing Devices
• Virtual Private Networks
• Inbound FTP
• Advanced Instant Messaging (such as whiteboard sharing)

A somewhat chilling tale of education gone horribly awry, it’s nonetheless an outstanding read. This action packed science fiction novel has everything a reader could want – beautifully detailed fight scenes, an intricate plot, and very realistic characters. It’s even got a love story in it! How much better does it get? –Joe Kaufeld, ACPL Teen Advisory Board

Truancy: Origins is one of 25 Teens’ Top Ten nominees chosen by teen advisory groups from around the country. Read all about TTT here.

If you weren’t able to attend (or even if you did attend) the chat and have follow-up ideas or questions feel free to add them to the comments. Keep an eye on the blog to find out when we’ll have our next online chat and what topic we’ll use.

• Organization & Bylaws Committee with Chair Melissa Rabey and YALSA President Sarah Debraski Organization & Bylaws
• Financial Health and Advancement with Fiscal Officer Mary Hastler Financial Health & Fiscal Advancement
• Publishing with YALSA with Committee Chair Heather Booth Publications
• YALSA Interest and Discussion Groups with Joseph WilkYALSA Interest and Discussion Groups

To learn more about how YALSA works visit the YALSA Governance, Handbook, Interest and Discussion Groups, and Committee pages on the Division web site. If you are interested in joining a YALSA committee don’t forget to fill out the volunteer form.

More information on YALSA and the economy is available in a recent podcast with Mary Hastler. The topic also was a part of a chat held recently by YALSA. The transcript of that chat is available.

Projects and resources mentioned in the podcasts include:

• Committee Chairs and Board Liaisons List
• Institute List
• List of Online Courses
• YALSA MySpace
• YALSA Wikis
• YALSA Wiki application
• YALSA Blog
• YALSA Twitter

The objective of this meeting is to explore the possibility of a national project to support cooperative collection development of online information portals for adults and teens with low literacy skills. Project participants would share responsibility for and access to a web library that will respond to the common information needs of teens and adults with low reading skills.

At the meeting we will look at some existing web portals, like Internet Public Library and the Beehive. We will also showcase many websites that could be incorporated into a larger portal.

Please join us to discuss these ideas. The meeting will be led by Robin Osborne, Director of the Office of Community Connections at the Westchester Library System (NY) and editor of From Outreach to Equity: Innovative Models of Library Policy and Practice (ALA Editions, 2004).

For more information contact Robin Osborne at rosborne@wlsmail.org.

How can you participate? Log into ALA Connect at http://connect.ala.org. YALSA members should use their login for the ALA website. If you’ve lost your password, you can recover it through the ALA website. Once logged in, head to the YALSA area (it’s http://connect.ala.org/yalsa or you can navigate there within Connect by choosing “YALSA” from under “My ALA Groups”) and then click “Chats.”

Can’t make it? We’ll post the transcript tomorrow.

The presenters include:

• Gail Bush from National-Louis University will be briefly discussing the history of school and library partnerships.
• Tasha Squires, author of the new book Library Partnerships: Making Connections Between School and Public Libraries will be talking about the nuts and bolts of how to create a robust school and public library relationship.
• Robin Willard from Chicago Public Library will be talking about the unique relationship that CPL has with the Chicago Public Schools.
• Anna Koval from Petaluma City Schools will be talking about collaboration from the schools perspective.
• Elisa McClain from the ALSC/AASL/YALSA Jt School Public Library Cooperation Committee will be presenting updated resources on the ALA website and how librarians can add resources to the site.
• Patricia Tirona, who will be sharing her program, Reading Challenge, which is a reading incentive program hosted by a shared facility public and school library as well as the community.
• Brijin Boddy, with her program, the Brown Bag Book Club, where she visits the local high schools during lunch for a book club discussion.
• Maureen Hartman, who will be sharing, History Day Hullabaloo, which is a partnership between the public library, the historical society, and the local university to help students with their History Day project.
• Kelly Czarnecki, with Game On!, where she brings both board and video games to the school library for an afterschool gaming program.
• Latasha Baker, with her Youth Discussion Group, where she purchases books for a book discussion at the local schools, bringing fun choices and activities to bring the books alive.

So come by and check out the great opportunities there are for partnering with the local public and school libraries in your community.

We’re hosting a casual session in which you can go head to head with fellow YALSA members, chairs, and leaders to ask questions, gather information, and network. We’ll have information on discussion and interest groups, professional development, publishing, events, happenings at Annual, and the perks of YALSA membership.

Whether you’re a long-term member looking for new ways to contribute or a newbie looking for ways to become engaged, this’ll be the program for you.

Conveniently located in the same hotel as the fabulous YALSA Happy Hour and Fashion Show, YALSA 101 will take place from 4-5 p.m. at the Westin River North, Promenade BR A.

See you in Chicago!

Why do you think so many teens want edgy or ‘urban’ fiction now?

The urban part reflects the literature catching up with the music. The influence of rap and hip-hop culture washes over every part of teen life, so that it would finally find its way into book isn’t a surprise. I just wonder why it took so long. It also mirrors what is going on in the adult market with rise of street fiction for similar reasons. As far as edgy, that is certainly a case of “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” (”Won’t Get Fooled Again” by the Who). I wrote an article over a decade ago celebrating that new edge in YA fiction, so it never surprises me. As I’m writing this, there was a big article in the Wall Street Journal about teen fiction; it was the usual decrying of the books being too dark. You get that article every ten years it seems.

What do you think makes fiction edgy?

Four things, and again there’s nothing new in any of these. Sex, drugs, language, and darker themes. Some books combine all four (like my novel Chasing Tail Lights) while others may just focus on one or two of these areas, like Ellen Hopkins’ books. The Wall Street Journal article pointed to 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher as one title, as if there’s never been a book on teen suicide before. A book is edgy if it reflects the darker edges of the teen experience. All the stuff that parents quite rightly don’t want their kids to experience: depression, eating disorders, substance abuse, etc. The issue, as always comes, back to one of the central conflicts within adolescent life / literature: independence vs. dependence. In most edgy books, the teen characters act independently, often getting themselves into situation they can’t control.

What are some favorite responses you have received to your writing? What do you hope teens take from your books?

I still get the most response about Things Change. Most of the messages are similar to one I got last week: “you changed my life with your book. And I just have to say thank you for representing girls (like me) who have been in abusive relationships. Because you feel like no one cares or will stand up for you. So thank you, for everything.” If you look at customer reviews on Amazon, you’ll see a lot more of these. There’s a review on bn.com about Chasing Tail Lights which is pretty intense. What teens take from my books is up to them, but there are some common themes across my titles. One is this: life is hard, but for Paul, Bret, Christy, Mick, and Danielle, their lives are harder because of sins / flames they’ve inherited. So the message is don’t make bad decisions and do stupid shit that makes a hard life even harder. Another major theme in my books relates back to the edginess issue: what happens when your body does stuff that your brain or heart isn’t ready to handle. That conflict of adolescence is the central conflict in every book. Finally, my books I hope give voice to Flint kids - and by that I don’t just mean youth in my hometown — but youth anywhere who are growing up in hard economic times with an uncertain future. We’re all Flint now.

What has surprised you about the fiction writing life after all your success with professional development?

How difficult it was to do, how much an editor shapes a book, but mostly how much books can really mean to teens. I always knew it as a librarian, but I know it on a totally different level now. The hardest part personally has been going from one of the top people in the YA librarian world to just another person in the YA writer world. That’s been a humbling experience, but I’m hoping my new book — an If You Like Twilight title called The Tear Collector — might move me up a notch or two on the teen novelist ladder.

Did you write creatively as a teen? What did you like to read?

I wrote bad poetry, worse lyrics, and some ok SNL like sketches for my school theater department. My reading - or lack thereof - as a teen I think is pretty well known. As a younger teen if it didn’t have something to do with grown men in their underwear pretending to hurt each other (aka pro wrestling) I didn’t care much. In high school, I read Ball Four by Jim Bouton and Carrie by Stephen King which really turned things around.

What has changed in the teen librarianship profession in the past 10 years?

Wow - that’s a big question. I did talk about this some in my SLJ interview in 8/2006 after I won the ALA Lifetime Achievement Award, but three of the biggest things in the past ten years are the explosion of formats like graphic novels and the energy that’s brought to collections and programming. The second is the way colleagues communicate with each other about teens services, and how they involve teen customers in the discussion. Finally, is a wave of new teen librarians entering the profession / getting involved professionally who seem loaded with energy and ideas for connecting with teens, not just loving the books.